A Theory of Name Resolution June 3rd by A. TOLMACH

A Theory of Name Resolution byAndrew Tolmach, Professor at Portland State University, and Digiteo chair

Name resolution is pervasive in programming language design and implementation, but it has not received proper attention as an independent task. This talk will describe a new language-independent approach to defining program binding structure and name resolution, suitable for languages with complex scoping rules including both lexical scoping and modules. The approach is based on scope graphs, a simple, language-independent, and easily visualized representation of program binding structure. The talk will give a gentle introduction to scope graphs by means of examples, and describe the language-independent resolution theory and tools that they enable.

Short bio:Andrew Tolmach is Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University, and holds a Digiteo Chair at Université Paris-Sud for the 2014-15 year. His interests are in programming languages, verification, compilers, tools, and applications.His current research is focused on on proof engineering and high-assurance systems software development.His past publications, mostly about functional languages, include work on debugger implementation, garbage collection, compilation, integration with logic languages, and lazy functional algorithms.